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2008 |
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MostlyFiction.com Blogs:
| "A room without books is like a body without a soul."
~Marcus T. Cicero |
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| May 11, 2008 | ||
Louise Erdrich's mesmerizing new novel, her first in almost three years, centers on a compelling mystery. The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation. The descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, their lives intertwine; only the youngest generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of the role the past continues to play in their lives. (read review) |
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| May 9, 2008 | ||
Split Estate opens with devastating scenes of a family at a horrific juncture: the wife of Arthur King and mother of his two teenage children, Celia and Cam, has recently committed suicide, jumping out the window of their New York apartment. The King family struggles to survive in the months that follow. Arthur has always been edgy about city dwelling decides they must move back to his home state of Wyoming for the summer, where his mother, Lucy, welcomes her orphaned grandchildren and her wounded son to her much loved but diminished ranch. (read review) |
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| May 8, 2008 | ||
Sheriff Bo Tully of Blight Country, Idaho is back! When the call comes in that Mike Wilson, the unlikable owner of West Branch Lodge, has gone missing, Sheriff Tully is delighted. This is an excellent opportunity for Tully, his tracker pal Dave, and his retired sheriff father, Pap, to enjoy a few evenings of hot tubs and single-malt scotch at the luxurious lodge while working the case. However, visions of R & R vanish in a flash on the drive up, when Tully and Pap suddenly realize an avalanche is thundering down the mountain, straight toward them. (read review) |
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| May 7, 2008 | ||
One morning in March, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, a woman named Karen Drew is found in her wheelchair with her throat slit. Back in Eastvale on that same morning, in a tangle of narrow alleys behind a market square, the body of Hayley Daniels is found raped and strangled. Two murders . . . two towns . . . Chief Inspector Alan Banks and Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot must work together to solve two chilling crimes in this stunning new novel. (read review) |
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| May 6, 2008 | ||
Terry Brooks is one of a handful of writers whose work defines modern fantasy fiction. His twenty-three international bestsellers have ranged from the beloved Shannara series to stories that tread a much darker path. Armageddon’s Children is the perfect opportunity for readers unfamiliar with Brooks’s previous work to experience an author at the height of his considerable storytelling powers. It is a gripping chronicle of a once-familiar world now spun shockingly out of control, in which an extraordinary few struggle to salvage hope in the face of terrifying chaos. (read review) |
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| May 5, 2008 | ||
As welterweight boxer Eddie Cero makes his way home through a dark Philadelphia alley, he steps in on two punks beating up an older man. It’s a favor that’s going to turn Eddie’s life upside down. Sal Giambroni buys Eddie a round and offers him a part-time gig helping with his private-detective work. Despite Eddie’s reluctance, a few days on the job reveal that he has a knack for snooping—and then he stumbles onto a cold case involving a missing soul singer. (read review) |
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| May 4, 2008 | ||
The 10th Inspector Ian Rutledge post-WWI whodunit. A man is found murdered, possibly by the schoolmaster who was a conconscientious objector in the Great War. Meanwhile, the British War Office is searching for a missing man, someone whose war work was so secret that even Rutledge isn't told his real name or what he did. The search takes Rutledge to Berkshire, where cottages once built to house lepers stand in the shadow of a great white horse cut into the chalk hillside. (read review) |
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| May 3, 2008 | ||
To most people, a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In others parts of the world, bananas are what keep millions of people alive. But for all its ubiquity, the banana is surprisingly mysterious; nobody knows how bananas evolved or exactly where they originated. But the biggest mystery about the banana today is whether it will survive. (read review) |
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| May 2, 2008 | ||
Lizka is a young Russian living an unexciting life in a backward rural town. After her first fleeting sexual experience sets the locals’ tongues wagging, she moves to a larger town in search of a new life – and love. In keeping with our heroine’s own character, and in the tradition of the great Russian writers, Ikonnikov draws out the tragic-comic nature of his characters and their obsessions, and presents the reader with a wonderfully detailed picture of provincial Russian characters, habits, opinions and desires. (read review) Chabon summons the rollicking spirit of legendary adventures in a wonderful new novel brimming with breathless action, raucous humor, cliff-hanging suspense, and a cast of colorful characters worthy of Scheherazade’s most tantalizing tales. (read review) |
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| May 1, 2008 | ||
This 2007 Man Booker Winner is a novel about love and disappointment, about how memories warp and secrets fester, and how fate is written in the body, not in the stars. The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan are gathering in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother, Liam, drowned in the sea. His sister, Veronica, collects the body and keeps the dead man company, guarding the secret she shares with him—something that happened in their grandmother’s house in the winter of 1968. (read review) |
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| Apr 30, 2008 | ||
Journalist and award winning television producer, June Cross was born in 1954 to Norma Booth, a glamorous, aspiring white actress, and James “Stump” Cross, a well-known black comedian. Sent by her mother to be raised by black friends when she was four years old and could no longer pass as white, June was plunged into the pain and confusion of a family divided by race. Secret Daughter tells her story of survival. It traces June’s astonishing discoveries about her mother and about her own fierce determination to thrive. (read review) |
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| Apr 29, 2008 | ||
"There is no crime." Stalin's Soviet Union strives to be a paradise for its workers, providing for all of their needs. One of its fundamental pillars is that its citizens live free from the fear of ordinary crime and criminals. |
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| Apr 27, 2008 | ||
Dick Pender is the man Creel, head of Axes Corporation, retains to "perception manage" his company to even more riches by manipulating international conflicts. But Creel may have an even grander plan in mind. Shaw, the hero in this book, has a different agenda. Reluctantly doing the bidding of a secret multi-national intelligence agency, he travels the globe to keep it safe and at peace. Finally, there is reporter Katie James, willing to do anything to get back to the top of her profession. In this terrifying, global thriller, these characters' lives will collide head-on as a series of events is set in motion that could change the world as we know it. (read review) |
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| Apr 26, 2008 | ||
"Already recognized for his short stories, 28-year-old grade school teacher Dave White has graduated to novel writing and his first novel is worthy of high grades. When One Man Dies is, in fact, an outgrowth of short stories by White about his character Jackson Donne and Bill Martin, Donne’s nemesis and former partner during Donne’s days on the New Brunswick (New Jersey) police force..." (read review) |
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| Apr 25, 2008 | ||
Meet Inspector Jack Spratt, family man and head of the Nursery Crime Division. He’s investigating the murder of ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Dumpty, found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. Yes, the big egg is down, and all those brittle pieces sitting in the morgue point to foul play. (read review) The Gingerbreadman—sadist, psychopath, cookie—is on the loose in Reading, but that’s not who Detective Jack Spratt and Sergeant Mary Mary are after. Instead, they’ve been demoted to searching for missing journalist “Goldy” Hatchett. The last witnesses to see her alive were the reclusive Three Bears, and right away Spratt senses something furry—uh, funny—about their story, starting with the porridge. (read review) |
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| Apr 24, 2008 | ||
From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers. See both our reviews -- one from Poornima and another from Sudheer. (read review) |
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| Apr 23, 2008 | ||
Frank Lloyd Wright left his wife to be with Mamah Borthwick Cheney. From 1907 through 1914, their affair was highly publicized; Loving Frank is a fictionalized exploration of these years told through Mamah's perspective. Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. (read review) |
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| Apr 22, 2008 | ||
Another ingenious thriller featuring Jim Stringer set in Edwardian England. It is winter 1906 and Jim has been promoted from sleuth to official railway detective for York station. His first day on the job, the mysterious Lost Luggage Porter, "a human directory to everything in York" tips him off to a group of railway thieves. Jim is instructed by his Inspector to infiltrate their gang and is drawn along into their plot to carry out a robbery and make their getaway across the Channel. (read review) |
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THE PLAGUE OF DOVES 
from 4 reviews
SPLIT ESTATE 
from 1 reviews
AVALANCHE 
from 13 reviews
FRIEND OF THE DEVIL 
GENESIS OF SHANNARA: ARMAGEDDON'S CHILDREN 
THE BLUE DOOR 
A PALE HORSE 
BANANA: THE FATE OF THE FRUIT THAT CHANGED THE WORLD 
LIZKA AND HER MEN 
GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD 
THE GATHERING 
from 87 reviews
SECRET DAUGHTER 
CHILD 44 
THE WHOLE TRUTH 
WHEN ONE MAN DIES 
THE BIG OVER EASY 
THE FOURTH BEAR 
UNACCUSTOMED EARTH 
LOVING FRANK 
THE LOST LUGGAGE PORTER 
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